Month: May 2020

If you’re looking for the differences between Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield for Nintendo Switch, then you’re in the right place. As veteran Pokemon fans know, each new generation brings a pair of Pokemon games that follow the same story but have several key differences, including exclusive Pokemon, Legendary Pokemon, and in the case of Pokemon Gen 8, different Gym Leaders.

There are even differences in the upcoming expansions, The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra.

Here’s everything we’ll be covering:

• Sword and Shield Exclusive Pokemon
• Sword and Shield Exclusive Legendary Pokemon
• Sword and Shield Exclusive Gym Leaders
• Sword and Shield Exclusive Cooking Ingredients
• Sword and Shield Expansion Exclusives

Sword and Shield Exclusive Pokemon

As it is with all other Pokemon titles, both Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield will yield exclusive Pokemon that are only catchable in one version of the game. Usually, these Pokemon can only be gained in the other version of the game, through trading. See all version-exclusive Pokemon below.

Sword Exclusive Pokemon

These are all of the Pokemon that are exclusive to Pokemon Sword. Between returning Pokemon, Galarian forms, and brand new Pokemon, Pokemon Sword has 31 exclusive Pokemon and 32 with its Legendary.

You can view all the Pokemon Sword exclusive Pokemon in the slideshow below, or click on the Pokemon’s name in the list for even more information about them.

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Returning Pokemon

• Deino
• Zweilous
• Hydreigon
• Jangmo-o
• Hakamo-o
•  Kommo-o
• Gothita
• Gothorita
• Gothitelle
• Seedot
• Nuzleaf
• Shiftry
• Rufflet
• Braviary
• Swirlix
• Slurpuff
• Scraggy
• Scrafty
• Sawk
• Basculin (Red Stripe)
• Mawile
• Solrock
• Passimian
• Turtonator

Galarian Form Exclusives to Pokemon Sword

•  Galarian Farfetch’d
•  Sirfetch’d

• Galarian Darumaka
• Galarian Darmanitan

New Gen 8 Pokemon

Flapple

Indeedee (Male)

Stonjourner

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Shield Exclusive Pokemon

These are all of the Pokemon that are exclusive to Pokemon Shield. Between returning Pokemon, Galarian forms, and brand new Pokemon, Pokemon Shield also has 31 exclusive Pokemon and 32 with its Legendary.

You can view all the Pokemon Shield exclusive Pokemon in the slideshow below, or click on the Pokemon’s name in the list for even more information about them.

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Returning Pokemon

• Larvitar
• Pupitar
• Tyranitar
• Goomy
• Sliggoo
• Goodra
• Solosis
• Duosion
• Reuniclus
• Lotad
• Lombre
• Ludicolo
• Vullaby
• Mandibuzz
• Spritzee
• Aromatisse
• Croagunk
• Toxicroak
• Throh
• Basculin (Blue Stripe)
• Sableye
• Lunatone
• Oranguru
• Drampa

Galarian Form Exclusives to Pokemon Shield

• Galarian Ponyta
•  Galarian Rapidash

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• Galarian Corsola
•  Cursola

New Gen 8 Pokemon

Appletun

Indeedee (Female)

Eiscue

Sword and Shield Exclusive Legendary Pokemon

Along with regular exclusive Pokemon, Legendary Pokemon are catchable in Pokemon Sword and Shield.

Zacian is the Legendary Pokemon on Pokemon Sword’s box art, and is the Legendary Pokemon you will attain in Sword. There may be an event later allowing Pokemon Shield players to attain Zacian at a later date.

Zacian Pokedex Entry: Zacian attacks so gracefully that its movements can even captivate its opponents. It holds what appears to be a sword in its mouth. Its shining blade can cut through anything.

Zamazenta is the Legendary Pokemon on Pokemon Shield’s box art, and is the Legendary Pokemon you will attain in Pokemon Shield.There may be an event later allowing Pokemon Sword players to attain Zamazenta at a later date.

Zamazenta Pokedex Entry: Zamazenta’s regal and majestic movements overwhelm any opponents that dare face it. Its body is covered in what seems to be a shield. Its gleaming shield can turn back any attack.

Sword and Shield Exclusive Gym Leaders

Certain towns will have different Gyms with different Gym Leaders and type specialties depending on the version of the game you play.

Pokemon Sword Gym Leaders

These are the Pokemon Gym leaders exclusive to Pokemon Sword:

1. Fighting-type Gym Leader: Bea

In Pokemon Sword, Bea is the Fighting-type Gym Leader for the Stow-on-Side Gym. This is the fourth Gym in the game.

She operates out of the Fighting-type Gym known as the Stow-on-Side Stadium.

2. Rock-type Gym Leader: Gordie

In Pokemon Sword, Gordie is the Rock-type Gym Leader for the Circhester Gym. This is the sixth Gym in the game.

He operates out of the Rock-type Gym known as Circhester Stadium.

Pokemon Shield Gym Leaders

These are the Pokemon Gym Leaders exclusive to Pokemon Shield:

1. Ghost-type Gym Leader: Allister

In Pokemon Shield, Allister is the Ghost-type Gym Leader for the Stow-on-Side Gym. This is the fourth Gym in the game.

He operates out of the Ghost-type Gym known as the Stow-on-Side Stadium.

2. Ice-type Gym Leader: Melony

In Pokemon Shield, Melony is the Ice-type Gym Leader for the Circhester Gym. This is the sixth Gym in the game.

She operates out of the Ice-type Gym known as Circhester Stadium.

Sword and Shield Exclusive Cooking Ingredients

There are also exclusive Ingredients in Pokemon Sword and Shield, which can be used for cooking Curry. In order to get these exclusive cooking ingredients, you will need to trade someone for a Pokemon holding those ingredients or you can cook with NPCs on routes or other players (online) in the Wild Area. Any recipes you “discover” when cooking with others will be added to your CurryDex.

You can buy both of these ingredients, in your version of the game, from the Ingredients Seller in the Rolling Fields or outside in the Wild Area entrance to Hammerlocke.

Sword’s exclusive ingredient is Bob’s Food Tin.

Shield’s exclusive ingredient is Bach’s Food Tin.

Sword and Shield Expansion Exclusives

Pokemon Sword and Shields expansions, The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra, each come with some exclusives for each version. Not all exclusives are known at this time, but they will be added as they’re announced or discovered.

First up are new rivals. Their ultimate goals are to train hard so that they can eventually set up their own Gyms.

1. Pokemon Sword Exclusive Rival – Klara

Klara is a rival that appears with The Isle of Armor expansion. She specializes in Poison-type Pokemon and is training with other new character, Mustard, at his dojo.

“She’ll do just about anything to appear adorable and cute, as popularity is what she admires most of all. She goes about her days with a smile on her face, but hiding behind it is a calculating nature that she puts to very good use.”

2. Pokemon Shield Exclusive Rival – Avery

Avery is a rival that appears with The Isle of Armor expansion. He specializes in Psychic-type Pokemon, as indicated by the Poke Balls that float around his top hat (and his uniform).

“He is gentlemanly and well-mannered but also very proud. And it seems that he’ll see you as a particularly formidable rival!”

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Joshua is Senior Features Editor at IGN. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.

Half-Life: Alyx is the first Half-Life game in a very long time, and fans who want to celebrate their return to City 17 might want to listen to the soundtrack on the go. Now, with the first part of the album appearing on streaming services, they can do just that.

Half-Life: Alyx Chapter 1 runs for just 21 minutes across 9 tracks, with more parts coming soon. You can listen below through Spotify. If you purchase chapter 1, all other chapters will be added over time, according to Valve.

These tracks will either evoke the music from the Half-Life game you’ve recently enjoyed, or, for those without VR, give you some scant piece of new Half-Life content after a long, long wait.

Other Half-Life soundtracks can also be streamed or purchased–check out the official Half-Life music page for more.

Half-Life: Alyx received a 9/10 in GameSpot’s review. “Not only has Half-Life: Alyx made good on its shift to VR, it has elevated many of the aspects we’ve come to love about Half-Life games,” wrote reviewer Michael Higham. “It may not be as bombastic as previous games, but the intimacy of VR brings you closer to a world you might have thought you knew over the past 22 years.”

GameSpot’s 2019 Game of the Year, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is Japanese developer From Software’s most recent release. Unlike other From Software titles like Bloodborne or Dark Souls, Sekiro is a purely single-player experience, until now that is. Independent developer Luke Yui has developed a mod called Sekiro Online that allows up to six players to play through the samurai’s journey together.

Sekiro focuses on heavily intricate combat, with foes trading blows and parries with precise timing. Patience and timing are the key to fighting and surviving through Sekiro, with the main damage mechanic revolving around breaking through an enemies ‘posture’ and striking a heavy blow. Adding more players to the mix breaks the tension of Sekiro’s combat, with every fight no longer feeling like a duel that could go either way, but more like a drunken tavern brawl.

The mod includes player-vs-player combat, with other players able to invade sessions similar to Dark Souls and Bloodborne player interactions. Friends can also be summoned as friendly phantoms that can play alongside the main character. This is again similar to using the bell in Dark Souls to get help on a boss fight from another play, only the player won’t disappear after the boss fight.

Both summoned and invading players are scaled to the host player’s level to ensure a level playing field, preventing players from being trounced by a single invader or players using a higher level character to easily beat boss fights. Yui has found this method is the best way to balance out PVE multiplayer with the mod.

“For example, if you have 40 attack power and your opponent has 1 attack power, they will hit you as if they have 40 and you’ll hit them as if you have 1,” Yui explains on the mod page.

All players will need the mod installed to play together, along with the Steam version of the game on PC. Yui has no plans to expand the mod beyond any non-Steam version of the game at this time.

The current build is quite buggy, but Yui intends on releasing regular patches and updates to improve the player experience as much as possible. It took the modder months to create the multiplayer mod, so make sure to tune in over the next year or so to see how it has progressed.

The developers of Dauntless have launched the 1.22 update across PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The patch includes the new Hunt Pass, some balance changes, quality of life updates, and bug fixes.

The new Rogue Elements Hunt Pass adds a new contract quest each week for five weeks, offering both Hunt Pass XP and Seismic Intel as rewards. The pass is free on the Dauntless store to download. Speak to Admiral Zai in Ramsgate to start the first Seismic contract quest.

Skarn’s armor has been rebalanced, with the armor set being adjusted to interact with different damage types to give the set more consistent gameplay. The cutting and piercing damage dealt with the armor has been increased from 25% part/33% core to 75% each. The blunt damage to the armor has been balanced out to 100% instead of 125% per part and 50% from the core. The armor part health has also been increased from 1.5% to 3% of max health. Breaking armored parts will no longer stagger Skarn.

Skarn’s stone spire attack is now a ring of spires that will track the player. While the attack is more telegraphed, it is also more dangerous. The Whirling Fortress attack has been nerfed to allow some counter-play, making dodging, running, and interrupting more viable.

The Lesser Gnash has been given some new attacks and mild alterations. The Flight of Ruin axe special can now generate lantern charge and life steal, as well as triggering certain on-next-hit effects. The Daily Bonus Cores are now more likely to contain an emote and can even contain Ace Chips of Vault Coins. The Nayzaga Sword and Chain Blades now heal for a flat amount of health on a part breaking, rather than the previous life-steal on broken parts.

• Quality of life changes have also been added to the patch, with various small changes being implemented to better the game for all players:
• Keyboard users can now hold ‘R’ to craft multiple consumables at once.
• The default keybinding for the Hunt screen is now ‘H,’ and matchmaking status is now ‘M.’
• The default action for the emote wheel now flares when on a hunt.
• Helms will now automatically hide when previewing face paints or hair tints on the Hunt Pass screen.
• Fixed a sigil alignment problem with the Arc of Exocrul banner. Your sigil should now appear correctly no matter which side you’re viewing the banner from.
• Icons for Escalation amps have been updated.
• Improved the way that non-English language text displays to avoid overlap with UI elements.
• It is no longer possible to buy an escalation buff if you already have one.
• Players can now select a “Random” option for Hunt Arrivals, which will choose a random Hunt Arrival from those owned.
• Timers for boosts now show the days AND hours remaining when the time remaining is greater than a day.

A number of general bugs have been fixed:

• Fixed a bug that was locking Slayers out of the Amateur Alchemist quest.
• Fixed a bug where the motion blur settings could reset when entering Ramsgate or starting a hunt. Motion blur setting changes will only be applied on the next transition (entering a hunt, or returning to Ramsgate). This behavior will be addressed in a future patch.
• Fixed a bug where players could appear to walk improperly when entering Ramsgate.
• Fixed a bug where the frame rate could be locked at 30 FPS after a cinematic finished playing.
• Improvements to certain areas in islands to prevent floating trees, and to remove a hole in a particular cliff.
• Fixed a bug that caused particle effects from Shrike weapon unique effects to linger for too long.
• Fixed a bug where player nameplates were sometimes visible through the End of Hunt screen.

The following combat bugs have been fixed:

• Fireballs that collide with terrain now explode immediately instead of after a delay.
• Fixed a bug that caused Shrike weapons to deal less bonus damage and the bonus part damage than intended.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the Malkarion legendary ability to teleport you to a random location.
• Using the Koshai lantern’s ability to dash through damaging obstacles will no longer cause you to take damage.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent Stormclaw weapon unique effects from activating when dodging through attacks.
• Fixed a bug that could cause Torgadoro to become stuck on its perch.
• Fixed a bug where successfully parrying during the initial activation of Avenging Overdrive (sword special) would allow it to be instantly reactivated.
• Fixed a spot in Blaze Escalation where players could not be hit.

The following UI bugs have been fixed:

• Fixed a visual glitch that could occur when switching between item previews in the Hunt Pass.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a single ram to appear as the reward in the Daily Bonus Core.
• Fixed a bug that could cause loading screen text to be obscured by a button when using certain display resolutions in non-English languages.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a failure when attempting to open multiple cores.
• Fixed a bug where the Torgadoro repeater barrel was missing from the repeater crafting menu.
• Disabling subtitles no longer disables tutorial prompts (e.g. “Press [Space Bar] to dodge”).
• Twin Suns (exotic repeaters) move list no longer shows incorrect secondary/special moves.
• Fixed a bug where the daily Hunt Pass collectibles HUD notification would show an incorrect number.
• Fixed a bug that could cause mastery level popups to display twice.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent the mouse from responding while the Message Of The Day was visible if the game was minimized during startup.
• Fixed a bug in the airship that could cause the Behemoth image, elemental breakdown, and recommended gear rating to be missing or incorrect.
• Improved party system UI.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the escalation buff to appear on the airship when not in an escalation hunt.

The following cosmetics bugs have been fixed:

• Fixed a bug that prevented dyes from correctly applying to armor.
• Slayers with facial hair will no longer see their beards clip through the Skyfighter Mask.
• Fixed a bug that could cause certain armor pieces to disappear in the presence of VFX.
• Fixed a bug that caused jingling sounds to persist after unequipping the Silver Nikola armor skin or Frostfall Bells helm skin.
• Chest armor now hides correctly.
• Improved the way that armor pieces interact on the player model.

The size of the download is 412MB, so make sure you have enough room to download the patch. Dauntless is available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Warning: this review contains full spoilers for The Flash: Season 6, Episode 18. If you need a refresher on where we left off, here’s our review for Season 7, Episode 17.

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Because COVID-19 is 2020’s “gift” that keeps on “giving,” “Pay the Piper” finds itself suddenly transformed into the penultimate chapter of The Flash: Season 6. It’s certainly not the ideal way to lead into the conclusion of this truncated season, but we can’t exactly hold that against this episode. The best Flash fans can do is accept Season 6 isn’t going to end the way it deserved and enjoy this more character-driven episode geared around one of the show’s better small-time villains. And no, I’m not talking about Godspeed.

Andy Mientus makes his return as Pied Piper in this episode. It’s amusing to see how Hartley Rathaway seems to be the first person whose life is overturned whenever Barry screws around with the fabric of time and space. Were Barry once interfered and managed to make an ally out of an enemy, Crisis ensured Hartley reverted back to his old ways. This may not be the most significant status quo change caused by Crisis, but it does serve a purpose. If Hartley is going to follow the example of characters like Captain Cold and Heat Wave and walk a more righteous path, let it be his own decision. That’s basically the hook of “Pay the Piper.” It finds a more organic way of depicting Hartley’s evolution from metahuman criminal to… whatever he qualifies as now.

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The rivalry between Hartley and Barry/Cisco is definitely the highlight of this particular episode. It’s fun seeing a more villainous side of the Pied Piper again, even if his motivations in this episode are nothing if not understandable. At no point does Hartley really come across as a villain, just a guy grieving for a boyfriend who might as well be dead. That conflict helps showcase a very Spider-Man-esque tale of power and responsibility. Barry feels a responsibility to fix a problem he never technically caused in the first place, while Hartley is forced to acknowledge he can do far more with his powers than rob jewelry stores. Honestly, when it comes time to expand the team Flash ranks again, the show could do far worse than make Mientus a series regular.

Sadly, the return of Godspeed isn’t cause for the same level of excitement. Godspeed is such a bizarre character in the Arrowverse. He shares very little in common with the comic book version beyond his basic look, and whenever he does appear he’s more convenient plot device than actual character. That’s certainly the case in this episode, as Godspeed pops up only when the plot needs a quick catalyst and then vanishes just as quickly. To be fair, the final showdown is entertaining. It’s been long enough since we’ve had a good speedster vs. speedster battle that the Flash/Godspeed showdown has a certain novelty value. Still, there’s always this nagging sense the series could be doing a lot more with this villain.

And maybe it will eventually? Clearly, there’s a larger conspiracy surrounding Godspeed that has yet to pay off. That doesn’t excuse the show’s inability to make Godspeed feel like a real character and not just a plot device. I can understand why the show’s writers may be cautious with this character and wary of rehashing all the familiar tropes where major speedster villains are concerned. But at some point, viewers either need to be given a clearer reason to care about Godspeed or the character needs to be retired.

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Apart from Barry’s fight to conserve his dwindling speed, it’s mainly the Iris/Kamilla subplot that serves to push the Mirror Master story forward this week. Unfortunately, that doesn’t amount to a lot of forward momentum, though Iris’ deteriorating condition does add a bit of extra urgency to their shared predicament. But after last week’s episode was so good about picking up the pace, it’s disappointing that speed doesn’t continue into “Pay the Piper.” Ending this episode with a stinger of Eva emerging from a hibernation chamber for no apparent reason doesn’t exactly help, either. There’s a lot of ground to cover if this season is going to have any chance at a halfway satisfying finale in Episode 19, and I’m not feeling overly optimistic right now.

That said, there is one way in which this episode actually does further the Mirror Master storyline in a more meaningful way. Tonally, this episode also showcases that sense of balance The Flash recovered with the advent of Season 6. There’s an undercurrent of darkness to this episode as Barry and friends come to terms with recent defeats and the full realization of what’s been taken from them, but Team Flash ultimately emerges on the other side a more unified and focused group. This episode really capitalizes on the team’s family dynamic and the way they truly are stronger together without getting overly sappy or melodramatic in the process.